The Spirit of Sittingbourne gets the Green Light

Guy Hollaway Architects are pleased to announce that The Spirit of Sittingbourne has been granted Full Detail Planning Consent following planning committee on 16th March, which saw Swale Borough Council voting in favour for the scheme.

The Spirit of Sittingbourne was formed with the single vision of making Sittingbourne a better place to live, breathing life into the town centre through innovation and regeneration.

The scheme to re-enhance the town centre of Sittingbourne boasts a new public square that will sit next to a new multiplex cinema, restaurants, retail units and 215 much needed homes for the town, creating a sense of community and place. A new modern highway arrangement outside the railway station is to transform the arrival into the town, creating a more pedestrian friendly environment without restricting traffic flow. A leisure quarter with new public realm provides a link between the High Street and main line train station. This new quarter will include a 7-screen cinema and 7 new restaurants bringing over 400,000 visitors a year to the town. A new multi-storey car park in a central location is to replace any existing surface car parking spaces that would be lost as part of the regeneration works.

Guy Hollaway Architects are collaborating with Harris partnership on behalf of Cathedral Group, Quinn Estates, and Swale Borough Council towards bringing the regeneration to fruition. The project is expected to generate hundreds of jobs for the area and £250m of economic wealth for the next 10 years.

Cathedral Group chief executive Richard Upton said: "Guy Hollaway Architects will bring an unbeatable combination of local expertise, major regeneration experience and access to funding, which we believe will put Swale on the map."

The scheme aims to kick start the regeneration through a series of interventions that will celebrate a new place, encouraging business, culture and community to flourish in the historical industrial town.